Marrow
by Riftless
Summary: In a last-ditch attempt at retribution, Cas is left broken, barely hanging on by a thread.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Yea, I don't own anything, property of the kripke.

Pairing: Gen now, maybe Dean/Cas later

Warnings: blood, h/c, whumpin'

Summary: events after 6.22

A/N: This is my first fanfic ever, and I'm a pretty awful storyteller, so fingers crossed here. Also, this was written mainly because I have an unhealthy appetite for the Dean/Cas h/c, because I eat this stuff for breakfast and I'm running out of milk...? The title is from the St. Vincent song of the same name.

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><p><strong>Marrow<strong>

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><p>Kneeling in a damp field, he drew his hand away from his abdomen to find it soaked in blood, digits and palm slick with a red as dark as black in the fading light. Tan, navy and white all drenched in an equally caliginous crimson.<p>

Hollow. A sense of nothingness began to travel from the base of his skull to drag down at his consciousness, pressing against the corners of his vision until the nothingness pulled him under its hazy embrace.

Losing focus, his limbs giving out, he remembers falling, although he couldn't really remember where he landed.

/ / / / /

Dean launched his cellphone across the room, and then proceeded to promptly launch his face into his palms as his elbows rested at the knee.

"Goddamn stupid sonuvabitch angels never answer the goddamn phone-"

"Could you please get yourself together here, Dean?"

Dean shot back at Sam one hell of a death glare.

"You're fussing. _Pining_. Again. Calling him another fifty times isn't going to make him magically pick up" the younger Winchester remarked.

"Excuse me Samantha for having a little bit of anxiety right now. Were you aware that cas's sweet new super-nuke powers could easily obliterate half of this planet, and we have absolutely no idea where he is or how to stop him?" Dean retorted, "Or did you fall asleep during that part?"

"You don't have to be rude, Dean. You're under a lot of stress right now, hell both of us are, but you've gotta settle down. We're gonna figure out a way how to change Cas back, but you've got to have some patience and trust me on this one. It's not going to be an easy fight, not by a long shot, but unless we want this to turn into a suicide mission, we've got to prepare, learn what we're up against".

"Oh yeah? Far as I remember, last time we checked the internet on 'how to find God' we came up dry".

"Well, we're sure as hell not going to get anywhere soon if you're just gonna keep calling him all day. C'mon, I've got some old books you can sift through while I make some calls" said Sam.

"… Fine."

Sam let slip a sideways smirk.

"But I get to pick where we eat breakfast."

\ \ \ \ \

Twenty seconds.

Twenty seconds of ineffable pain, growing exponentially by the moment. He reached out in a last ditch effort, the only way he knew how.

Coughing and drowning in his own vitality, a void in his chest, he tumbled face first back into nothing.

/ / / / /

Twenty seconds, and Dean found himself at the hands of an extremely upset Sam.

"DEAN! Snap out of it!"

"Jesus, I'm good already! What're you spazzing out about! And why do you have your hands on me?"

Sam remained perfectly still, staring, speechless.

"… And why are we stopped?" Dean wondered aloud.

"You practically had a stroke, Dean! One minute everything was fine, then the next, you're seizing, unresponsive, and I've got to grab the wheel to get us off the road! What's going on!"

"Uhh… how long've I been out?"

"I don't know, just long enough to swerve into oncoming traffic and nearly kill us both!" Sam finally pulled away, only to shakily grab a flashlight from the glovebox and roughly shine it into Dean's pupils.

"Not like I could help it or anything," Dean pushed his brother away and leaned back in his seat, "Not like I _tried_ to have a seizure."

Sam held up on the flashlight for a moment, "Well, I'm glad you're okay, but if something's going on then yo-"

"Whoa, Sam, shut up. Take a look at this"

Sam followed Dean's gaze to where he was staring up at the interior roof of the impala, where he'd scratched into the hard leather surface with his bare fingernails. The evidence was barely legible, but resembled some form of code. The brothers sat there staring, silent, dumbfounded for several moments at the cryptic patterns.

"I think it's from Cas," Dean blurted out.

"Wait… and why are you saying this?"

"Because I just know it, ok? Don't even start with me about this, but I've been getting these vibes that he's in deeper shit than the usual. This just feels like him."

"Well, I guess you'd know. Do you think that eipsode of of yours had anything to do with it?" Sam had that look in his eyes again. The kind that forcasts geekery of the highest offense.

"I think so. Actually, I'm like a hundred percent sure of it," Dean pondered, "You think you can read this?"

Looking at the impala's shredded interior, Sam confessed, "I've got no idea what language this even is, but we both know where to find out".

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><p>Uhh... so hopefully that wasn't completely incoherent. Helpful reviews are very helpful :3<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

So this is a short/boring chapter, just to keep things fresh and stuff I guess :3 It'll get more interesting later, I almost certainly promise... hehe.

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><p>During his brief stint as an almost-human, powers weakened, he remembers the nightmares that bombarded his subconscious, startling him awake at all hours of the night. Worse than anything he had ever encountered were the figments of his own imagination, memories of his past, of perdition and suffering souls and the stench of the pit.<p>

Hell was, even by angelic standards, pretty bad. Little did he know, the human imagination could be so much worse.

/ / / / /

Dean had always thought of Bobby as a sort of walking, talking Rosetta Stone; this instance was no exception. Bobby almost instantly recognized the language scrawled into the impala's interior as Enochian, the basest of forms, mainly used among angels of the lowest tier. However, it was a whole different story deciphering the message's meaning, for which they once again hit the books. Another good thirty minutes of deep thinking revealed that the accompanying numbers could actually be translated into the standard geographical coordinate system- their best bet at an accurate translation. Another five minutes spent on google maps revealed that this location was also in the middle of a field, smack dab in the center of middle-of-nowhere South Dakota.

"Hey, that's less than half an hour from here!" Dean moved to grab his keys and was out the door a beat later.

Sam wished Bobby a quick goodbye and followed his brother out the front door into the muggy summer heat.

\ \ \ \ \

Hands clawed and stretched every inch of his body. Not just hands, but claws, sharp bone, teeth, fangs. He thinks there might even be the serrated, shredding sensation of a tentacle in there somewhere. But that's not the point.

Not an inch of his body is left untouched. Of course, for the average angel, this would have absolutely no effect on his physical manifestation as for angels, grace and body become separate once no longer in the physical plane. However, it's been a long time since he could be called the typical angel in any respect.

At this point, he is all but eviscerated. Death would never come- could never be reached through these means. Feral souls couldn't simply claw their way through an angel's essence; Grace had to be _burned. _But that never stopped them from trying.

As time drags on, he hides himself further and further into the recesses of his own consciousness. It's hard to decide which is worse: the excruciating pain that accompanies awareness, or the echoes of his metaphysical torture that plagues his every dream.

He decides he'd much rather feel nothing at all.


	3. Chapter 3

So this is probably riddled with mistakes and inconsistencies and gaping potholes... I forgot what else I was going to say. Nevermind. Here's chapter 3!

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><p>"It should be dead center in the middle of this field," Sam announced, consulting Bobby's GPS for the millionth time that hour, "but since the GPS is only accurate to within about 50 feet, we might have to loo-"<p>

Sam was interrupted by the car door opening as his brother began to gear up.

The pair were met with an endless expanse of tall grass and wheat, save for a single, towering oak, visible for (what seemed like) miles. Cicadas hummed and screeched to their content, particles living and otherwise sped and swam around every which way. The horizon was already a fluorescent stripe of pink, the sun bleeding its color across the sky in that classic summer sunset sort of way.

Daylight was dwindling. They needed to work quickly.

The brothers paused for breath, "Yeah, something tells me we won't have to look very far" Dean immediately set out into the thick summer afternoon air and at an almost urgent pace, armed to the teeth, brother in tow.

The wheat was thick, just around waist high. The pair waded through the unkempt field, about twenty feet apart, searching through the grass. All things considered, this grassy terrain was nothing compared to the struggle through the underbrush and the thicket of the woods.

They had walked for about a mile, however looks were deceiving. All the while they slowly approached the massive, standalone tree that acted like the centerpiece of the scenery, propped like the true link between the skies and the turf. It was sort of a mirage; it never seemed to get any closer even after such a distance.

Finally, they had reached their predetermined destination, which was unsurprisingly centered exactly over the tree. "This thing's huge" Dean admired, briefly skimming rough worn hands over the grit of the bark. It had to be at least 100 years old, Dean thought. I mean seriously, he couldn't even begin to wrap his arms around its trunk. Meanwhile, his brother searched and circled the area.

"Dean… I think you need to… just get over here right now" said Sam breathlessly after a moment.

Dean took a break from tree hugging to meet up with his brother, and stopped in his tracks when he saw the small streaks of blood that stained the trampled brush which Sam was staring at.

"Shit..." Dean muttered, and with that was gone a split second later down the trail.

"Wait, Dean!" Sam hurried to catch up as he tailed his brother.

It was less of a trail than a rough path, consisting of partially matted down grass and splotches (and sometimes small puddles) of dark drying blood. Dean remained silent, stoic; nevertheless, Sam wasn't fooled. His brother's alarm was palpable, his heartbeat almost audible over the screaming insects. It was barely any time at all before the trail came to a stop at a clearing next to a river.

A couple seconds passed, and despair began to settle on the pair. The trail simply ended there, right up to the abrupt waterfront. There was some tall brush at the water's edge, and while the current was moving at a lazy pace it appeared to be strong, perhaps even enough to take a body. Apart from the grass and the fifteen or so feet of waterfront that they could see before the stream rounded the corner from both ends, there weren't many options for the body of a full-grown man to disappear into. They moved their search a little further downstream, and it was then Dean found exactly what he hoped he wouldn't find.

A small, barely visible stripe of tan trench coat at the edge of the water set the eldest Winchester in motion. Launching into action, Dean was at the water's edge in a heartbeat, Sam close behind.

Submerged up to his midsection, Castiel had been all but completely concealed by the reeds, his back facing the siblings in an awkward heap on the ground. When they found him, still a bit wet, He lay partially curled in on himself, face and chest angled towards the ground in a pool of something Dean really doesn't even want to consider right now, lower half darkened as his extremities reached the streambed.

It appeared he had been held in place by an eddy or a back stream, and had managed to keep his upper half above water on the shoreline. But he obviously hadn't had anything more left in him, judging from the fact that he now lay beached and unconscious on the stream bank.

Dean walked into the steadily flowing river, in up to his thighs, in order to get over to the angel.

"Oh shit… Cas…" he fumbled, reaching to touch his shoulder. "Cas man, you alive there?" One small shake and he didn't move. He checked for a pulse, and after a terribly long moment, he was answered with a weak, fluttering beat.

"He's got a pulse…" that was hope enough.

Cas's face was white even in the dwindling light, his bluish lips in such stark contrast to his hue less face and the dark crimson soaking underneath his body that Dean's stomach flipped. Looking at his hand where he had rested it near Cas's underside, Dean could see that it came back dark red.

"Sam, what…" he trailed off, momentarily dazed.

Luckily, it was Sam that snapped back to his senses. He had also waded into the water behind his brother.

"Dean, we need to get him help , or he's going to bleed out, and soon" Sam stripped off his flannel t-shirt and quickly set to work trying to staunch whatever wound loosed so much blood from their fallen friend's vessel. After a second or two Dean followed suit, stripping off his own outer layer and holding it to Cas's stomach, firmly securing the makeshift bandage for the risky trip back.

They weren't able to tell the full extent of his wounds, but they did know that it was dead serious. Carefully, Dean hooked his arms under Cas's armpits and pulled him the rest of the way out of the water, then hoisted him up to cradle him to his chest with a hand under his knees and behind his back. Dean thought he could tell Cas was significantly less heavy than he had seemed before, but then immediately buried the thought.

As Dean hefted Cas's dead weight back in the direction of the Impala, Sam ran to start the car and meet them along the way.

The grass was thick. Carrying the weight of an extra body was no easy task, made even harder by the scrubby wheat trapping and catching at his ankles, threatening to plant him face-first into the ground at every other step. Focus was key.

Dean trudged on in the sweltering heat, sweat plastering his shirt to his back and his hair to his temples, air stagnant and still. Insects brushed past, blowing little pockets of air from their wings- his only source of relief, save for the cooling body he clung to.

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><p>Reviews and everything are always wonderful :3<p>

Also, if someone would care to breifly explain the review/pm sysem that'd be GREAT BRO.


	4. Chapter 4

****This chapter is a little... abrupt maybe? Not completely happy with how the chapters fit together (or if this thing makes any sense at all) but whatever, progress is progress. :B

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><p>The sun had already dropped below the horizon by the time he met up with Sam. Dean was able to maneuver Cas's limp body into the back of the impala by himself, propping him up against the door and getting some blankets from the trunk to trap what little heat he was producing. It might have been a hundred degrees outside, but with such little blood to move all that heat, Cas wasn't any warmer than the average cadaver. Marinating in that stream certainly didn't help either. Dean grabbed some dressings and his flask from the trunk and climbed into the back seat, leaving Sam to man the wheel.<p>

Successfully de-clothing an unconscious, bleeding, sopping wet angel dressed in a heavy trench coat in the cramped backseat of a speeding impala was impossible. Of this, Dean was absolutely certain. There was no way that damned coat was coming off, given the water had already seeped up his back, clinging tight to his skin. Every move he made at removing the damned thing jostled the angel, who seemed to unconsciously tense in pain whenever he tried.

They'd been driving for at least twenty minutes, and Cas had remained more or less in the land of the living; his heart was still beating, and his breath was alarmingly shallow but present, at least most of the time. He decided that he could at least assess the damage, and crouching in the foot well, he kept his forearm pressed firm against Castiel's stomach as he began to unbutton his shirt.

Dean tried to think about what happened, until it became too painful and confusing and distracting from the task at hand.

Unfortunately, the white dress shirt was just as problematic as the rest of his clothes, congealing blood making it even more difficult to peel away from skin. It was taking way to long, Dean believed, and decided it was time for Plan B.

He counted to three, then shifting his arm to better grab the lapels of cas's shirt, ripped open the rest. Dean stared at his friend's marred and bloodied chest, stunned for a few precious moments.

And then Castiel gasped.

Bad move, Winchester.

/

Suddenly, he started to feel again.

Not everything though. Not even complete sensations. Like seeing the world through a pinprick.

A shadow. He was cold. He was wet. Then there was light, then pressure, pain, burning lungs, struggling, bones grinding, agony.

It was all happening to fast. He sucked in a breath, only to immediately regret the decision.

His entire body lit up with pain, shooting through his limbs and leaving sparks dancing behind his eyes.

Even as his eyes opened, blackness was already edging into his vision. Someone was there, crowding over him leaning on his stomach with something and it _hurt. _Focusing on the incoherent shape in front of him, he had no luck distinguishing the other body with his physical senses, but through the screaming pain coursing throughout his body he somehow knew that it was Dean. It could only ever be Dean. He could see the shape that was his friend, blurry and shifting in and out of focus, shouting things he couldn't hear but seemed to be urgent. Castiel tried to listen to the words but comprehension escaped him.

He could only see the fear in Dean's eyes before blacking out again.

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	5. Chapter 5

Hey there. It's been awhile. So uh, finals. Yeah. What a drag. But hey, have another chapter of my own little siesta from real life/canon/homework, starring my favorite punching bag(s) who I love dressing up and making them kiss and totally do not own them in any way. /i am a strange lady okay/

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><p>\\\\\<p>

"Cas, come on man, you've got to breathe, CAS!"

The shallow gasps continued, wet and rasping, becoming increasingly erratic.

"Cas, you sonofabitch don't you dare leave me here, not now…"

Dean couldn't decide what to address first, which was worse, between the weeping open wound on Cas's chest, his pained gasps to try to draw in air, or the way each movement seemed to set off a new chain reaction of pain somewhere else in his convulsing body.

Both angel and hunter had started to sweat, although it wasn't because of the heat. Writhing and shuddering on the leather bench seat as his body starved for air, his friend's face was screwed tight with unbearable pain. He could feel several bones grind in their place where Dean had him pinned down against the seat of the car, his hold slicked by the blood he was also simultaneously trying to staunch.

Dean suddenly felt lost. He had no idea what to do.

Distantly, someone called his name from behind him.

"DEAN!" Sam shouted, "What's happening back there! Do I need to stop?"

He started, "Uhh, no. No keep driving"

Blue unfocused eyes slowly opened and shifting, tried and failed to focus themselves in Dean's direction.

"We've only got about twenty minutes left, is he gonna make it back to Bobby's?" the younger Winchester asserted.

Sapphire gradually fell away once more, replaced by white as Cas promptly fainted on the spot, eyes rolling back in his head as his body compliantly sank back into the leather seat.

He didn't' answer Sam as he moved into action, once again attempting to staunch the bleeding.

"Dean!" Sam looked back around, immediately taken aback by the sight in the backseat. There was a lot of shivering, an expanse of bluish skin only tinged with pink, and a whole lot of blood.

Blanching, he turned his attention back to driving, picking up an extra ten miles an hour.

/ / / / /

A vast sea spread out in front of him, accented by only the first rays of sunlight staining the horizon.

He gradually came to realize he was sitting in the tepid water, no, nearly lounging in it, as the sea reached up to gently tug at his middle with the surf.

If he wasn't clothed before, he's pretty sure he is now. The weight of the waterlogged cloth feels familiar against his skin. He could have stayed like this for days.

The tide gently rose, crawling up his arms and past his elbows, past his chest: unmarred, bearing none of the scars of a harder life.

There was a pain somewhere in his core, a dull throb that he couldn't quite locate or soothe. Not that he needed to anyway.

The water began to recede rather quickly, whispering past his ankles and around his feet as the last rivulets were chased back from where they came.

He lay back, stretching out on the damp sand. Something itched at his subconscious, but he promptly scratched it away. Maybe if he put his hands under his head he could relax more, that was what he'd seen others do. That was what Dean often did.

Dean.

The throbbing increased.

Something whispered in the distance. It grew to a whistle, until it finally reached a crescendo in the form of a hundred thousand inanimate voices, soon transformed into screams.

The impossible wave towered overhead, but he couldn't move.

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	6. Chapter 6

Hey. It's been awhile. Even more whiles. In the mean time, I wrote some more of this. Yep. 3

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><p>Cas had been hell-bent on bleeding out over the back of dean's car.<p>

It was going to do miracles for the upholstery, he later recollected, with at least a few pints of blood slowly soaking into the seat and dripping onto the floor.

But now, his first priority was making sure that he didn't worsen the situation.

Sam busied himself by calling Bobby, telling him they were on the way with some bad news indeed.

A few more agonizing minutes, and they reached Sioux Falls.

With a crunch, they turned onto the bumpy gravel road that served as bobby's driveway at last, and passing under the 'Singer Salvage' signpost they headed up to park in front of the house.

Sam lay on the brakes, a little harder than necessary, and was out of the car before it stopped, jumping up to open the door behind him. The light on the front porch went on, only half-illuminating the impala in the almost- dark. Dean kept pressure on Cas's wounds, easing the rest of his limbs out of the car as Sam hoisted him up from under his arms, until Dean followed and grabbing his calves, they made their way to the front door.

Bobby was already ready for them as they made it up the creaky front steps, a rusty silhouette against the porch lights, and hurried them into the den where it was the warmest and the most accessible. It looked like Bobby had at least had some time to prepare, as there were already towels spread out over an old futon that he'd dragged into the room. He ran off to get some more supplies as the boys lowered their friend's pliant body back down onto the bed. Bobby returned with the old hunter's very own brand of First Aid kit, which included nothing less than an entire arsenal against any sort of ailment- natural, supernatural, or otherwise.

First on the agenda were the clothes. Splattered with blood and grime, they weren't especially conducive to a healthy recovery. This time, on stable ground, they were able to untangle the damp dirty trenchcoat; the jacket, on the other hand, required the attention of Bobby's scissors.

Both coat and jacket were covered in holes and gashes, and seemed to bleed the dried blood from their fabric.

With the thick layer of clothing now gone, the damage was all out in the open. Cas was still out cold, save for the way his eyes would sometimes dart around frantically under their lids, or the occasional twitch. His face was almost sort of peaceful, showing only the slightest trace of pain.

His body, however, was not nearly as easy a sight. He was wrecked. His shirt, already having been so naively ripped open, allowed them better access. Apart from his obvious stomach wound, on which Sam continued to press a small mountain of gauze, the entire right side of his body was covered in dark bruises, especially around his middle. After quick inspection, at least five ribs appeared to be broken or cracked.

Well, guess that shows what was taking his breath away, Dean thought darkly.

Dean discovered both bones of his right forearm badly broken, as well as what was probably a broken or sprained ankle, judging by the swelling, and one nasty looking head wound that reached from the side of his forehead, across his temple, and past his hairline, above the ear. Head wounds were nasty business, and this one was no exception, still staining the side of his head and hair dark. A startling number of cuts and scratches marked the rest of his body.

And still, there was that damn white shirt. It was stuck to his skin in several places, where cuts had already scabbed, unfortunately right under and into the fabric. Bobby once again came back from the kitchen with a bucket of water and some more towels.

"Watch out for that shiner he's got," the older man grumbled, "you don't wanna mess around with concussions". He was right. They'd have to wake him up sooner or later to check.

The boys silently set about cleaning the blood from the angel's skin, Sam one-handed, and Bobby left the room to go refresh the sigils and traps around the house. "You never know with that angel crowd," he muttered.

They soaked the wounds that stuck to his shirt, carefully peeling the fabric away before methodically disinfecting and bandaging them with gauze. Dean debated whether he should throw it away or not, before laying it in the pile with the rest of the clothes and sodden towels.

It was obvious their friend was still in a bad way. He barely reacted as they eased the bandages under his back to wrap his ribs, a move that plainly jostled the wound on his stomach. And he still didn't wake.

Dean stalled… friend? What _was_ he to them right now anyways?

Still not the time for this shit.

The wound on his abdomen was still a major problem and definitely needed stitches. Sam brought the sewing kit, being the more precise of the two, while dean cleaned and bandaged even more cuts where he could. It was probably better if Cas just stayed unconscious for this.

"What now?" Sam asked, trying to poke the surgical thread through the needle's eye and eventually succeeding. He looked up after a few seconds with no response, but Dean was intent on his work.

Sam tried again, "We can't just ignore what's happened, all the shit he's done. Or what if he wakes up and he's not himself?" he cleaned the edges of the wound and pinched them close. Luckily, he wasn't missing so much skin as he was simply garroted in the stomach.

"We'll see," Dean deadpanned. He'd moved down to Cas's ankle, prodding the swollen joint and swathing it in an ice pack and even more gauze. And just like that, the issue was dropped for the time being.

Sam was starting to sweat as he finished up stitching. The job really was something else, he had to compensate for the sheer size of the hole where it grew slightly in the center of the wound, pulling the ragged edges to meet in the center. It would be too easy to pop these stitches; they were going to have to keep a keen eye on Cas for a while.

Dean was now inspecting the broken arm, wiping away the dried blood and inspecting the break.

"I'm gonna have to reset this," he grumbled, fastening his hands in place just above and below the break as Sam looked on.

He sighed through his teeth. Visibly steeling himself, Dean quickly pulled apart the bones, then rotated them into place. He paused to look at his unconscious friend's face as he reached for the wrap, expecting some sort of reaction to what was certainly an overwhelming amount of pain. But he never even flinched.

That was… not good.

Dean sat motionless beside the futon, watching as Cas's stomach fluttered, breathing shallow, erratic.

"I think… he's waking up?"

Dean could only watch as Castiel quaked, shivered under his bandages, crashing back into consciousness.


End file.
